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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Saturday Centus

Hoo boy. I try not to complain...but wow, do I ever hate this week's prompt! This one is well and truly evil. Oh well, must make do. Jenny Matlock describes the assignment thusly:

I'm not 100% certain, but I think a lot of you probably have dreamt, albeit briefly, of being a Hallmark Superstar. It's OK to admit it. You're among friends here. How can you not want to attain the absolute pinnacle of writing success...cheesy sentiments for greeting cards!

With that in mind I scoured the web searching for the perfect romantic picture for you to create a mushy Hallmark-ish masterpiece around.

Now, with all due respect, I have to make an admission here: I have never, not once, harbored any desire whatsoever to write blurbs for Hallmark cards. I have made my own greeting cards in the past, choosing my own artwork and text, but the text I create is usually a poem of some sort, either one I've written or a poem I've liked from someone else. A standard "picture plus blurb" card, though? Nope. (Not that I'm implying that I am "above" such things, mind you; I've just never once wanted to come up with my own Hallmark Card-type of thing. My favorite store-bought cards tend to feature either funny cartoons from The Far Side, or beautiful artwork with no blurb at all inside, maybe just a generic "Happy birthday" kind of thing, with lots of space to write my own long-form greeting. That's just how I roll, greeting-card-wise.)

Anyway, we're supposed to write a Hallmark card. OK, fine. And we're given a picture to work from. Again, fine...except that this is the picture.

Oh, noes. What on Earth am I going to do with this? Now, if I was just going to caption this as a Wonder Woman reference, I'd do something like this:

"Uh, Steve? I'm not totally confident in this new plan of yours to capture the Cheetah."

But that's not a Hallmark card, unless it's a card for Comic Book Guy. What to do...well, OK, I'm stalling. This prompt is, as I said, evil. Jenny Matlock must right now be sitting in the command chair of her mountain fortress, drumming her fingertips together and chortling at the thought of the turmoil she's unleashing upon her Saturday Centus community.

OK, fine, enough stalling. Here's what I came up with:

From the rejection pile at Websters Dictionary:

OneTrueLove(n): That person who instinctively understands that there are some things we’ve done that should never, ever, EVER, be spoken of or referred to in any way.

Thank you for being my almost dictionary-defined OneTrueLove!

Best I could do, folks. Harumph.

(Oh, and a note to all the Centus participants whom I've met since I've started doing this: Feel free to participate in my twice-yearly game, Ask Me Anything! I'm taking queries all month!)

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Quotables

"Make your country...into a land that understands more than only war and righteous piety. Allow space in your lives for more than battle chants to inspire soldiers. Teach your people to...understand a garden, the reason for a fountain, music."

-Guy Gavriel Kay,The Lions of Al-Rassan

Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any creative art. The water is free. So drink.Drink and be filled up.

Stephen King,On Writing

We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.